Royal commentator says that African descendants of past kings should pay reparations for slavery

[cocococococococo]

😳
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-jr-fordwich-slave-trade-reparations-b2171510.html

Well those comments aren’t likely to offend at ALL are they?!!!! 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

There may be some embarrassed shuffling of feet and coughing if the descendants of certain Nigerian and other sub Saharan royal families who benefitted massively from the slave trade had to answer certain questions...

The Ottaman Empire killed or enslaved whole swaths of South Eastern Europe. Perhaps Romania should be asking for money from Turkey?

@ConnectFortyFour
Yes, put in a claim immediately.

It is all such dangerous shite. Following it to its entirely stupid conclusion, if a nation is found guilty because of something done hundreds of years ago, does that mean that descendants of murderers and rapists should always be guilty.

If not, why not? After all, if we can be held collectively responsible as descendants, why shouldn't it apply to individuals as well.

If a group of my ancestors did something wrong and I have to be a part of apologising and paying out just because I share the same blood, then why should descendants of murders get a free pass. They share the same blood as their ancestor and should be judged guilty for ever more.

If my grandfather murdered someone, should I be apologising to his victim's grandchildren.

Stupid. I don't apologise for anything my ancestors-or even my parents did and nor does anyone else. I would apologise for my dog or children under 18 but that's your lot!

"We all know who the victims of slavery were."
It is not about victims (Ireland had slaves taken by Africans) it i8s about perpetrators
There i8s a narrative that only white people did slave trading which is totally untrue and not know by the uninformed woke left

They do know, but anything that doesn't fit their narrative is just ignored

That narrative doesn't exist - people know who the perpetrators of slavery were.

Because the best ways of strengthening your wealth to pass on to your children are opportunity of employment, education and property ownership all things that were specifically denied to groups of people for over four generations and their ancestors are still playing on an uneven playing field now because of that. I'm not sure that reparations are the answer but something to redress the balance is needed particularly when the ancestors of those who benefited from hundreds of years of free labour are still repeating the benefits of that wealth now.

What about rich Africans who profited from the slave trade before Europe arrived on the scene? Or do they get a pass because they're black?

What about African leaders who have syphoned away money meant for their people? That money would have contributed to the good of their people?

It wouldn't astonish me to learn that we're not allowed to mention that for fear we might be seen as racist.

That’s the point though. Measuring it over 4 generations doesn’t address slavery.

That addresses what may or may not have been lost or gained in one very short period, when you compare it to the whole history of slavery.

You can’t address just one small part when talking of reparations.

Going back to the arrivals an example would be with how uncomfortable some People of Colour are with the new film ‘the woman king’ as it’s historically inaccurate and leaves out (for the main part) that Dahomey built its wealth and power on slavery.

would their descendants be expected to pay reparations? Or not because of french interference at a later date. Or would the French be expected to pay reparations, to the Dahomey descendants for interference and the wealth being lost, which would mean they were profiting from their ancestors history of trading slaves?

It’s refreshing to see these kind of details being brought into the discussion.

Every country has racism problems, but in America they’re next level, it’s a huge huge thing there. And there is a lot of ‘white guilt’ around that, with crap racist books like ‘white fragility’ being made compulsory reading for staff by some American employers. Out of this has come a narrative that all black people are victims of all white people. This narrative is deeply offensive to people of every skin tone.

Then America began to get bored of its ‘white guilt’ and started looking for someone else to blame ie Britain.

I think it’s stupid to talk about reparations for slavery when it’s impossible to work out who is descended from slavers and who from slaves, and it’s offensive, deviaive and a lie to make it a ‘black v white’ issue when there were also so many black slavers and white slaves, and it’s ridiculous to focus on a particular era of the American past when modern day ‘trafficking’ aka slavery, is such a massive problem. If America wants to right wrongs then why don’t they return some of the land stolen from Native Americans?

Empires usually involve slavery, which is horrible.

The Sumerians, Egyptians,Greeks, Romans, Turks, Arabs, British, French, Germans, Belgians, Portuguese, Spanish (and for all we know, the Aztecs and Incas etc) all had empires and enslaved people.

Apologies are meaningless - the facts need to be acknowledged and regretted but no-one alive today is to blame for the slavery of African people under the British and other empires (as a pp said, Africans themselves and Arab slave traders were culpable too in the trans-Atlantic trade).

Where does it end? Shall we ask Italy to send reparations for the Roman invasion and the 400 years of occupation, which must have involved slavery of the native Britons? Or the French for the Norman Conquest, after which lots of English peasants would have effectively been serfs or slaves? All nasty episodes in history.

I'm not sure how the huge emphasis on past slavery helps anyone really. It's always been known about - I was taught about the evils of the slave trade at primary and secondary school long ago. I don't understand what's new - are there really lots of people in this country who didn't know about it?

(When I worked in education, I used to wonder frequently about Black History Month. Do black children want to see endless images of their ancestors as slaves? There are plenty of more positive images of black people to focus on. Not suggesting suppression - I'm just putting my self in their place and wondering if it's the way I'd want to see myself represented so repeatedly. Also - Black History is History, isn't it? I don't like the 'ghetto-isation' - it's all history, surely.)

The irony of this thread is that British tax payers made a final payment only in 2015 of a slave trade compensation debt paid to slave owners due.

In 1833, Britain used 40% of its national budget to buy freedoms for all slaves in the empire - I.e. compensating the white slave owners for the loss of their property and gave nothing to the slaves themselves.

This means that you and I (to the extent any of you are British taxpayers) indirectly contributed to the compensation scheme for the slave owners (which their descendants obviously benefited from as this is billions in modern day money).

Find it mind blowing.

MbatataOwl · Today 07:36
We need to concentrate on slavery that is happening today.
In the UK we have people held as domestic slaves and sex slaves. I can't understand why by people insist on harping on about past slavery when right now it's happening, we can see it but yet no body cares. It's mind blowing.

Well said, MbatataOwl.

If only people put as much indignation and energy into sorting out the horrible rackets which enslave people right now that they do about the past, the world would be a better place.

Modern slavery and people-trafficking should be the focus instead of virtue-signalling about past slavery. Yes, it was horrific - who would deny that? But it's too late to help those people.

There are so many vested interests in hiding modern slavery (or virtual slavery ) from us as consumers. I wonder how Primark manages to sell its stock so cheaply? How do recreational drug-users think their coke etc gets to them? It's no good feeling righteous indignation at the tea drinkers and sugar users of the 18th century - we're not so very different ourselves. We ignore so much because we rather like the products of slavery.

I'm sure I've done it myself in the past - but I try hard nowadays to scrutinise the origin of things I buy.

Why would it be a fair response.

White slave owners were well compensated, whereas the slaves themselves weren't.

Generational wealth is a significant thing that changes the course of history. Look at the royal family. So much of their wealth is from East India Company taxes & EIC's profit was largely taking resources from the colonies & that's passed generation to generation hence why Prince William has just inherited a billion of assets. The Crown Jewels were also stolen from india and other places at that time.

I find it ludicrous those who benefited conveniently never think anything should be returned or repaid.

Because we are still benefitting from it?

Some people obviously benefitted more than others but as a country we benefitted and still do.

It might only be in small ways, the architecture in your town, the traditional industries that developed or even just the ability to see art work collected by funds from slave owners.

And yes 200 years ago my ancestors were probably in some form of indentured work and may well have been chained to factory machines, but I still benefit from the slave trade.

Are you going to include Africans and Arabs in those who have to pay, @carmenitapink ? Or is it just Europeans?

What about African leaders who have destroyed their own and neighbouring countries?

I feel no white guilt. What a phrase! Every nation in the world is guilty of something.

No nation should bear collective guilt for anything. That's a pretty dangerous route to take.

Historians have made estimates of the different slave trades. The one across the Atlantic dwarves the trans-Saharan one. The Indian Ocean slave trade was substantial but also considerably smaller than the Atlantic.

'Africa' never 'sent' slaves across the Atlantic. All the ships that took slaves across were European. ALL of them.

The Dutch also colonised in the Americas.

It depends which slave trade we are talking about. West African slave trade was largely Europeans. East African slave trade was largely Arabs.

I'm not suggesting reparations because they are too hard to calculate, but I find it mind blowing that pre 2015 tax payers contributed to the repayment of the slave owners' compensation and I find it sad that the U.K. won't return.

When you speak to Germans, they very much own up to the history of Nazi Germany and say never again etc.

However, Brits don't really own up to their past - look at how the British government put Kenyans in concentration camps as recently as 1950s during the Mau Mau rebellion when Kenyans asked for their stolen land back IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY and we're brutally castrated and imprisoned instead. That was as recent as 1952 - 1960s. People were shouted down for even mentioning the negative impact of colonialism when the Queen passed and Charles took over.

So no I don't think reparations would ever happen, but a simple acknowledgment and apology for things that have happened frankly in recent history would go a long way!

*wont return things that were clearly stolen during colonial times, including so much art filling the British museum and many of the royal family's jewels taken from india.

... the British Navy interfered with Portuguese and French ships carrying slaves once slave trading was outlawed for British subjects. Which happened only after the UK had built the biggest of the slave-based economies in the Caribbean and American South.

I think we need to be clearer on our own history and past - it isn't taught fully in my view and I feel it is watered down so we don't have to face that difficult past. We talk of the commonwealth and British empire, we didn't just rock up on a boat, offer a cuppa and ask countries nicely to join the commonwealth did we?
In Germany, they teach the atrocities of WWII as a way of ensuring it never happens again, it's not to invoke shame but to learn from our pasts.
I was aware of the 2015 final repayments and it remains shocking, this is not all distant past. Why did those payments remain made, contracts and laws can be changed through due process.

I have done work to raise awareness of modern slavery

I also care about slavery in the past

People can care about two things at once? And I think there's a big overlap in the groups of people who care about modern/"historic" slavery

Historic in inverted commas as its effects (including its economic benefits) are still being felt today

This is US-focused but a worthwhile read:
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/

And yes, just to emphasise PP's point that until 2015 we WERE paying reparations...to the descendants of slaveowners.

So why is it such a huge leap to consider reparations to the descendants of slaves?